Je t'aime
by simonsaysfunction
Summary: A scene at camp in which there's banter, a cold Dalish Warden, and fluff. femslash, F!Mahariel/Leliana


Title: Je t'aime  
Author: YukiVampyra  
Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins  
Pairing: F!Mahariel/Leliana  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.  
Summary: A scene at camp in which there's banter, a cold Dalish Warden, and fluff. No spoilers, though it takes place whilst the party is searching for the Sacred Ashes.  
A/N: I apologise in advance if I didn't get the characterisation perfectly. This is my first attempt at any sort of writing in the fandom.

It was a curious thing, their group. A Dalish elf, an apostate, a Templar, a Circle Mage, a qunari, a Mabari warhound, an Antivan Crow, a Dwarf, a Bard and a Golem. Even curiouser was that the Dalish elf and the Templar were the last Grey Wardens in Ferelden, with the former being their de facto leader. But the most curious thing of all was that they were all, for lack of a better term, friends (grudgingly on the apostate's part), though the focus of this tale is the relationship of the fearless wild woman and the Orlesian bard.

It was a particularly cold evening in a valley of the Frostback Mountains, their camp near the village of Haven. Lyna was huddled, shivering beneath blankets and armour, between her Mabari and the bard.

"We're lucky we found that trader. You might have frozen to death otherwise." Wynne commented after noting the elf's tremours, not adding, of course, that by the looks of things that was still a possible outcome.

"It's hardly her fault. She's not used to the cold." Leliana offered, hands moving briskly over the elf's arms for frictional warmth. In fact, the bard clearly remembered the first time Lyna had seen snow. She'd reacted much like a small excited child, at least until she'd noticed the temperature.

"I don't need your pity, shemlen." Lyna snapped through chattering teeth. On the surface, it seemed to be simply a biting reprimand, however the tone it had been delivered in had an undercurrent of soft affection just for the redhead. Something that did not go unnoticed by the mage who simply lifted an eyebrow high on her forehead.

"Are you warm enough?"

"Do I look warm to you?"

"If you had just listened to my suggestion, _entêté…_"

"Not here. Maybe later."

"It will warm you further!"

To Wynne, it sounded far too similar to banter between young lovers instead of comrades-in-arms or even friends. The second eyebrow rose.

"If you two are quite done, I am attempting to _be productive_." Came the aggrieved voice of the apostate whose golden eyes were narrowed to slits and resting on the two bickering women, her mother's Grimoire open upon her lap.

"Not all of us can be as cold-blooded as a snake, Morrigan." Alistair sniped, stirring the cook pot and shivering himself underneath the metal plates covering his body.

"Snakes cannot abide the cold, simpleton."

"Frigid bitch."

"Chantry fool."

"…Maleficar."

"Has your paltry sum of wit run out so quickly?" Morrigan taunted, sensing yet another petty victory over the Templar.

"_Mon dieu_, both of you be quiet."

"Go back to molesting the Warden, _bard_."

"Morrigan!" At the elf's forceful protestation and the irritated glare sent her way, Morrigan closed her mouth and began to silently seethe, eyes returning to the tome. Alistair's chuckle at the apostate's retreat died on his tongue as he shrank under the weight of both Leliana and Lyna's withering stares.

The camp fell into a tense silence, broken only by the sizzle from the pot, the turn of pages of the Grimoire, and the sound of rustling blankets as Leliana continued in her pursuit of warming the blonde elf. They were lucky that the snow hadn't picked up after some initial snowfall that morning, the air simply remaining frigid despite the bright sunlight that had shone all day. Lyna hated being this far north. She had enjoyed the relatively nice weather the Brecilian Forest had, as well as the few times they'd traveled as far as the coast. She wasn't built for this, the snow and the ice and the bone-numbing wind. So the blonde huddled against the redhead, uncaring, for once, if the other three noticed the familiarity in which they sat wrapped up.

Lyna felt something shift in the woman beside her, a tense and the removal of one hand from against her frame. And then she heard it, the crunch of snow and ice underneath boots and realised that Leliana's hand had dropped to one of her many hidden knives. Her own moved to wrap stiff fingers covered in even stiffer drakeskin around the handle of a dagger in her boot, its presence only at the bard's insistence. Alistair and Wynne were oblivious, discussing quietly whatever dubious meal the former was concocting. Morrigan, however, had paused in her reading, a small spell forming in the palm of the hand now hidden beneath the book.

As a rather inebriated Antivan Crow accompanied by an equally intoxicated dwarf appeared, the three women relaxed with Morrigan rolling her eyes before resuming her study. Leliana, as well, resumed her task of warming the Warden to the tune of Alistair yelping when he burned himself doing a taste test.

"Just in time for food, of course." Wynne admonished, her eyes tracking back to the blonde and the redhead as they leaned their heads together, whispering. It was the first time she'd truly seen the elf smile, though just as it appeared, it was gone, as if the woman realised that her expression could be seen.

"We found some stuff to warm up the Warden!" Oghren slurred, holding up a half empty bottle of Antivan brandy while Zevran cradled several bottles of spirits in his arms.

"I don't drink." Lyna muttered, tucking her face against the bard's shoulder as she felt some of the feeling leave it.

"Oho, now there's another way to get warm." The dwarf leered at the two, and after a beat, so did Zevran, their minds hinging on the positively lascivious ways that the women could get 'warm together'.

"Shut up, durgen'len." The elf hissed peevishly before standing up and hauling Leliana with her. She regretted the change in position almost immediately, the cold sapping every bit of warmth she'd achieved to leave her a shivering mass once again. However, she would not be deterred from getting away from the sets of eyes now riveted on them. They knew that, despite the teasing way in which Lyna would use her language from time to time, it was usually out of anger and the others didn't relish getting an arrow through the eye, so they were mercifully silent. So they trudged through the snow not towards the tents, but towards the copse of trees not far off, the elf muttering something half-hearted about needing to show the bard something.

"Lyna, they were drunk. You know Oghren and his innuendo." The redhead offered, though she was more than a little exasperated by the other woman's need to keep them a complete secret. She, however, was a bit more adept at reading people than her Dalish companion, and therefore knew that while Zevran and Oghren were simply trying to find any excuse to make a lewd comment, Morrigan knew, and Wynne suspected. Alistair was decidedly too naïve to think that his fellow Warden did not return his advances because she preferred the company of other women, or at least a particular Orlesian woman.

"They shouldn't comment like that. It's…it's…"

"Perfectly natural."

"How is it natural to say things like that?"

"You know them. They make them sober, let alone drunk."

Lyna merely huffed in response and leaned her shoulders back against a tree, arms crossed over her chest both in an outward expression of sulking and in a feeble attempt at warmth. Leliana sighed at her stubborn streak and simply moved closer to wrap her arms properly around her. To the bard's delight, the elf didn't struggle, but merely set her head to the redhead's shoulder, arms slipping around her neck. It still amazed them that a simple touch from the opposite could calm them so, whether it was a hand to an arm or the small of a back in passing, or a clandestine embrace.

"_Je t'aime, mon coeur._" She whispered, content that she could express how she felt without Lyna being the wiser, comforted, for once, by their cultural differences, the protective barrier that Orlesian provided.

"You've said that before. What does it mean?" Lyna asked curiously, though absently, as she attempted to worm her face closer to the other woman skin, soaking in the smell of Andraste's Grace. The last time Leliana had said those words, they had been in a tangle of limbs and sweat inside the bard's tent with the blonde's head pillowed over her breast. It had been so quiet that without her sharp hearing, she never would have heard what she assumed was a declaration of emotion whispered into her hair.

"It's nothing. We should go back to camp, otherwise you will freeze and I will starve." With that said, and a playful kiss to Lyna's cheek, the redhead moved back towards camp, her expression pensive as soon as she turned.

The Warden's expression unknowingly matched hers, and then hard determination took its place. She would find out what those words meant, even if it killed her.


End file.
